Secret Santa
by Jonesy E
Summary: Michelangelo has a Christmas dilemma.  His brothers give him some less-than-helpful advice.  One-shot, Mikey and Don.


**A/N:** I thought I'd try to write something with Christmas cheer. I know how difficult getting gifts for siblings can be. Especially trying to 'ask them' what they want without really _asking_ _them_…that's a pain. I like focusing on Don and Mike's relationship and the latter's relationship with others—Leo and Raph get a lot of screen time because they go at it, but it's fun to look at the other two as well. It's a bite late, as Christmas is over, but I wanted to throw it up anyway. Don't ask me why I spell 'Donnie' with 'i-e' either. I just like it better than 'y'.

Once again, looking for fluidity and entertainment quality. If it's boring, tell me. Thanky kindly.

* * *

Michelangelo was worried.

Anxiety was unusual of him; any of his brothers could tell you. In fact, out of every member of their family, April and Casey included, he was the last any would ever expect to see wringing his hands in apprehension. Yet here he was, sitting in a rotting sewer pipe outside their underground home, chewing his nails and wondering what in the world he was going to do. Beside him sat a lumpy cloth sack and a scrap of paper, the latter of which had one word written on it in their father's elegant, slanting Kanji.

_Donatello_.

Raph had scoffed at him, grunting from behind his auto magazine. "Don't know why you're makin' such a big deal out of it. It's just a gift."

"'Just a gift'?'" Mikey had repeated, genuinely horrified. Leave it to Raph to be the essential Mr. Scrooge. "It's Christmas! He's my Secret Santa!"

Raph had snorted as he turned a page. "Yeah. In case you haven't noticed, Chris Kringle, we haven't actually given Secret Santa gifts since we were, oh….nine. When's the last time you gave a gift to _only_ your Secret Santa?"

Raph was correct. Secret Santa in the Hamato family was an age-old tradition, one that had taken root when they were young and near destitute; barely skilled enough to make their way through the sewers alone, let alone scavenge, the Secret Santa game had seemed to Splinter an excellent way to make what little they had last. Now that they were older, getting gifts was just a matter of resourceful scrounging, or sending April out with some cash; still, every year, they gathered around their Sensei on the couch and pulled names out of a dirty old Santa hat, just as they had when they were toddlers. Though the necessity of giving Secret Santa gifts was moot, the tradition of drawing names lived on…and Michelangelo took Christmas very seriously.

Very. Seriously.

"That's not the _point_, Raph. I'm his SECRET SANTA. It has to be something, like…awesome. _Really_ awesome!"

"Uh huh." That was the 'Ok, leave me alone' tone. "Good luck with that, Mike."

Out of all of his brothers, Donatello could be regarded as Michelangelo's closest companion. Raph's heated anger and Leo's stern, silent watchfulness set them against each other naturally, pairing them off in arguments and battle alike; both more mild-mannered and left on the sidelines, he and Donnie naturally gravitated toward one another. Don laughed at Mike's jokes, encouraged his pranks (for the most part), and rarely hit him upside the head like Raph, or shook his head in defeat like Leo.

As compatible as their base personalities were, however, Don's interests couldn't be more polarized from his own. Mike liked drawing, skatingboarding, movies, pizza; Don liked things that smelled weird, bubbled and/or had a tendency to blow up. And videogames too, he liked those. But Michelangelo was set, determined, to get him something awesome. Something meaningful. Something with pizzazz.

"What am I going to do?" he'd wailed to Leo over the elder's katas, as he relayed Raph's reaction to his query. "It has to be something really cool. Like _perfect_."

"Raph's right, you know," Leo had answered in a sigh, after realizing that ignoring his youngest brother only made him more insistent. "You've given Don a present every year for a while now, just like the rest of us. What makes this time any different?"

"This!" He waved the fateful piece of paper in front of Leo's nose. "Secret Santa!"

Cue the famous Leo headshake. "O.k., Mikey…this really isn't that hard. We haven't really paid attention to those in years. Look, get him…um…a book."

"Too much effort. Don't know what he'd like." Any book Don would want, he probably wouldn't be able to remember the title of, anyway.

"A new keyboard. He's been talking about getting one."

"Too expensive. And too complicated. Have you _seen_ the ones he's been looking at? They have a million joysticks and crazy buttons and stuff."

Sigh. "An ITunes gift card, then. That's foolproof."

"Too generic! That screams 'I forgot about you and saw this in the grocery line, here you go, Merry Christmas'."

Leo had given him a look then, the look of death, and Mikey scrambled out of the dojo before Fearless set him to doing flips until his legs collapsed. Thanks for the help, Leo.

What could he possibly scrounge for Donnie that he would even _like_, let alone use? Raph was easy—a rusty old wrench or a lug nut, something he could use on his bucket-o-bolts motor cycle, and he'd be happy. Splinter enjoyed practical things like scarves or mittens, stuff he could easily lift from the bin outside Goodwill when no one was looking. Even Leo would be easier to please: a musty old book about Imperial Japanese weaponry he'd found abandoned outside the city library would keep Fearless occupied for weeks. No, he would have to find something special for Donatello, something unique.

He hadn't gone so far as to _ask_ Donnie exactly what he wanted—that was cheating, in Mikey's opinion—but he had ferreted around for clues. And by that, he meant he had hung over his older brother's shoulder as he worked in the lab, twiddling his thumbs, and just generally being Mikey—hoping to prod some sort of hint out of him.

"Whatcha doin', Don?"

"Making cookies. I'm taking apart the water heater, Mikey. It's leaking again and I've got to fix it, or we'll be taking cold showers all week."

Don teased him just as the others did, but always with the infinite, good-natured patience of a true elder brother. Very rarely did he mean it.

"Water heater, huh? And those tools your using, um, that thing in your hand…."

"A wrench?"

"Yeah. Looks sort of old and rusty. Seems like you might need a new one."

Don was concentrating. "I've been using it for years and it's never let me down. Think of it as a lucky wrench."

"O.k." No dice. What else? "Don't you think you might need an actual tool box instead of those plastic bins?"

"I've got them all labeled and organized according to tool and metric size. Getting a new box means I'd have to label and organize all over again. Don't fix it if it's not broken."

Damn Donnie and his OCD tendencies. "Yeah, uh…I didn't think of that. Er…." Mayday, mayday. Floundering. Mikey had glanced over to Don's desk, which unlike his tool area, looked like a bomb hit it. Protein bar wrappers and chip bags littered the surface, along with the occasional empty Coke can; magazine and newspaper clippings were pinned haphazardly on the pegboard behind the monitor, and even some on the surface of the computer tower itself. These were accompanied by several of Mikey's own drawings, sketches that Don had seen and expressed a quiet interest in, and so to them they came. These were all concentrated in the lower right hand corner of the board, directly to the right of the monitor. Nothing on the board told him anything about what Don would want. He began to panic.

"Um…let's see…a new mouse pad?" he'd asked lamely, stumped.

Don had stopped and turned to look at him then, his eyes slightly suspicious. "My mouse pad is fine, Mikey. What are you up to?"

"Up to? Nothing!" A notoriously bad liar, he'd made his exit then, claiming he heard Leo calling.

Now Mikey sat in the degrading sewer pipe, a nervous wreck. It was Christmas Eve. Splinter was sipping cocoa by the fire and Leo and Don were decorating the tree, having been chased out of the kitchen by Raph as he trudged around putting the finishing touches on his holiday feast. They would exchange gifts right before sitting down to dinner. Time was nearly up.

He grabbed the cloth sack next to him, sighing as he pulled it open. All of the gifts for the others were wrapped already—or as close to wrapped as he could manage with reused wrapping paper. All that was left was to choose a gift for Don out of the bag, which contained his sketchbook and a few pencils, along with his top three choices for Don. It had to be awesome. It had to be fantastic. And he feared that none of them were good enough.

Present possibility #1: a gently used copy of _Killer Zombies 17 Online_ for P.C. He and Don had played the beta before it had come out a year and a half ago; now the game was a bit dated, but Don might still enjoy it. Maybe. Sort of. Or not.

Strike one.

Possibility # 2: An almost good-as-new headset for Don to use for his IT tech support hotline. He'd gotten it off Ebay a week ago, beating out four other bidders. It was supposed to be one of the best products on the web, and had only been used for a month by a telephone operator or something. The only problem: the seller had failed to inform him that it was a pink, 'Hello Kitty' themed headset. Too late to return it, and he had a feeling Don would rather choke himself with the headset cord than wear it.

Strike two. Things were getting desperate.

He didn't even look twice at possibility #3: a $30.00 Itunes gift card. He had bought it out of panic, when for the life of him all he could think of was Leo's face floating through his mind. It was disgraceful. Strike three.

He wailed, throwing the gift card over his shoulder into the dark of the sewer pipe. That's it. He was a dead man. Michelangelo, Secret Santa dropout.

He shoved the cloth sack aside roughly, sending his sketchbook and pencils sprawling. Pouting, he bent over to pick up the mess, gathering the lose papers that had dislodged from the notebook. As his eyes fell on the last of the sketches, he froze.

…_could it really be that easy?_ he thought. _Honestly?_

Hmmm. What did he have to lose? He took a deep breath. Nothing. Nothing to lose. Secret Santa, here we come

* * *

They sat around their father on the couch, surrounded by shredded wrapping paper and ribbons. Raph inspected the numerous scavenged parts he'd received for his bike, grunting in approval; Leo pretended to sit at attention, ever the perfect child, while surreptitiously sneaking peaks at the Japanese book Mikey had given him. Don's tech gifts from the other two boys and their father sat in a neat little pile, looking to Mikey incredibly intimidating. He should have gone with the Hello Kitty headset. Too late now.

And then they were all looking at him. His gift to Don was the only one left for the purple-clad turtle to receive. Carefully, he unfolded his small offering, clearing his throat, which was as parched as a desert.

"So, um…I was your Secret Santa, Don." He ignored Raph's eye roll, and Leo's head shake. "And I had a hard time choosing, but, er…it may not be much, but um…here."

He started to panic as the gift left his fingers and slipped into Don's. This was a mistake, a HUGE mistake. What a lame gift! What was he thinking?

Don opened the fragile sheet of sketch paper, eyes fixed on the drawing. He was quiet for a second. "It's a sketch," he said, rather obviously.

"Yeah, um…. The one I drew of you when I was watching you last week in the lab. I remember you asked to see it and said that you liked it…." He was floundering again. "I thought you might like to have it."

The second-to-oldest turtle was silent for only a few more seconds, but it seemed to Michelangelo to be the longest silence of his life. Everyone's eyes, save Donatello's, were on him.

Then Don tore his almond-shaped eyes away from Mikey's small gift, looked at his youngest brother, and smiled.

"It's great, Mike. Thanks."

Michelangelo felt the tension in his chest sudden dissipate. He liked it! He had actually liked it! Mission Secret Santa, accomplished.

"No problem, bro." He then immediately turned and pounced on his own pile of unopened presents. Wrapping paper began flying. "Now, who was MY Secret Santa? What didja get me? Huh? Huh?"

Raph rolled his eyes again. Leo sighed. Donatello got up to pin his new present to his pegboard.

* * *

I know, it's late. Fun stuff to write, though. I hope you enjoyed it. Review if you wish.


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